Terror Laws

Put to him that the Prime Minister had signalled possible "compromises" on Friday, and was it now correct that today was not seen by the Government as a day to alter its proposals, but rather to explain them further, the PMOS said that what was important was, first, to set out why we believed we needed these range of measures to protect this country. Second, why the Home Secretary had such an important role. But, thirdly, it was also vital that we acted speedily if the circumstances required. The PMOS said he did not want to pre-empt what the Home Secretary had to say this afternoon in the House of Commons.

Asked if it was a principle for the Government’s position that the only way to defend national security was for the Home Secretary to act first and then put it to a judge, the PMOS said the Prime Minister had addressed the issue last week in PMQs. The Prime Minister had said that the important thing was that we were able to act quickly, and that if the security services and the police judged there was an emergency situation, then people had to act to safeguard national security. The PMOS said again that in terms of precise details, people should wait for the Home Secretary’s speech later this afternoon.

Asked why it was not "just as quick to get a High Court judge out of bed as it would be to get Charles Clarke out of bed", the PMOS replied the important thing was that whatever happened, people could act quickly. The country must not be put in a position where people knew of a potential risk, but were not able to act on that risk.

Asked if the Home Secretary would say anything new this afternoon, the PMOS said it was better that people waited for the debate.

Put to him again that the balance of the argument appeared to have shifted with regards to the need to act quickly, the PMOS said that the argument had always been that if there was a threat to security, then people should be able to act quickly, and to be able to do so without in any way jeopardising national security. In terms of judicial input, as the Prime Minister and Charles Clarke both said last week, people had raised concerns about it, especially when someone’s liberty was in question. Those were issues that the Government said it would discuss. Therefore it was better that people waited for the debate.

Asked why the current Prevention of Terrorism Act could not be used, the PMOS said that he was not a lawyer, but his "non-lawyer" explanation was the difference was between arresting somebody with a view to charging them on specific evidence, and the situation where there may be intelligence, but not intelligence that could be used as evidence.

Put to the PMOS that the Prime Minister had said in a "Woman’s Hour" interview that there were "several hundred people plotting" a terrorist attack, and did that therefore mean there would be several hundred house arrests imposed, the PMOS replied: no. The Prime Minister had used the same phraseology last week in PMQs, and he made clear that with regards to the extreme end of the control orders, we envisaged that it would only be used against a very few people. However, in extreme circumstances, extreme powers were needed, and we had always made it clear we would only use those powers in a few exceptions. The PMOS emphasized that the whole point about the control orders was that they were a more sophisticated range of powers than were available at the moment. Therefore, people would have the power to vary the restriction according to the individual, and according to the threat level that the intelligence services believed the individual posed.

[start quote] Asked why it was not "just as quick to get a High Court judge out of bed as it would be to get Charles Clarke out of bed", the PMOS replied the important thing was that whatever happened, people could act quickly. [end quote]

Curious \x97 the government has no problem getting a judge out of bed when they need to get an injunction against a Sunday newspaper in a hurry…

"Therefore, people would have the power to vary the restriction according to the individual, and according to the threat level that the intelligence services believed the individual posed."

Well I dunno about anyone else, but the fact that the PMOS could utter such words demonstrates quite clearly the complete disregard the government actually has for the human rights of the individual. If such a framework is put in place the potential for abuse is simply staggering. Remember that everything is relative; if we were to suddenly have an increase in the "threat level", then even though "he made clear that with regards to the extreme end of the control orders, we envisaged that it would only be used against a very few people", if there were a multitude of threats, a "very few people" could in fact mean "quite a lot of people".

And it doesn’t take a great count of years for the number of "threats" to increase. I mean only recently we have the whole IRA Bank Raid Sinn Fein Implicated shenanigans, which means that militancy in Ireland (and according to recent reports, on the mainland) has the potential to increase again; we have constant pin-pricks from "Al Qaeda", and I daresay that with more mis-policy by Western governments, plenty more threats could be contrived.

Look at how many times David Blunkett asked for even more "extraordinary powers" in his time as Home Secretary. If this framework were in place and the HS needed to tinker with it due to "new or increased threat levels", and he needed more "extraordinary powers", think about how easy it would be for a small amount of rewording to make the whole think read "he made clear that with regards to the extreme end of the control orders, we envisaged that they would need to be used against an increasing number of people", or similar.

And all this on the strength of "intelligence"…

Would this be the same kind of "intelligence" which took this country into an unnecessary war, against a country ravaged by years of sanctions and abuse, killing thousands and costing billions? The same kind of "intelligence" as that presented as irrefutable proof that Iraq had WMD and, make no mistake, "they will use them against us"? Presented by the same government and "intelligence services" which used such later-discredited gems as Nuclear Material From Niger and various friends of cousins boyfriends sisters dads sons uncles brothers in Iraq who "knew someone who had heard something about WMD" as that proof?